John Hillcoat Quotes

Drama is always conflict. Conflict either comes from within or without. The thing that makes a show different is the conflict manifests itself both internally and externally.

Conflict drives fiction; no one wants to read a four-hundred-page novel in which everything rolls along smoothly.

For me, drama is conflict.

You can't tell a good story without conflict - the story can't be beautiful or meaningful. We're taught to run from conflict, and it's robbing us of some really good stories.

Here's what happens in a play. You get involved in a situation where something is unbalanced. If nothing's unbalanced, there's no reason to have a play. If Hamlet comes home from school, and his dad's not dead and asks him if he's had a good time, it's boring. But if something's unbalanced, it must be returned to order.

You've got to have baddies that you can boo.

At the heart of drama is conflict.

I think that internal conflict works very well, because, after all, all the best drama is fuelled by conflict.

We need the villain sometimes. It makes for an interesting story.

Conflict is the place where character and plot intersect.

What's interesting to me is drama and conflict. Things aren't interesting without conflict and resolution of conflict - or striving towards a resolutions of conflict.

If I really knew how to do good storytelling, I would be a writer. Mystery is not a huge part of it. ... It's tension, it's relationships. I think it's a struggle.

If you have no conflict, you have no story. That's number one. That's a rule of novels.

Well, you need the villain. If you don't have a villain, the good guy can stay home.

Whether you're writing a horror show or a James Bond film, I think what bubbles beneath is interesting characterization. The colors that emerge through storytelling is what a dramatist does. There's always got to be something bubbling underneath that will erupt at some point.

Good stories are driven by conflict, tension, and high stakes.

If you have a beautiful story, it has to have conflict. If you don't have conflict, it can't be a good story.

As for writing about temptation, there's no drama without temptation, and no novel without drama.

Tension is the cornerstone of any good story.

In order to have a plot, you have to have a conflict, something bad has to happen.

With any good story, you need the adversary, the heroes and villains. You need a good mixture to make it work.

You won't have a story unless you have conflict, which means if there's no conflict in a situation, people look for a way to make some.

I think that I am interested in the resonance between character drama and high stakes, either situational or political or social or other kind of elevated drama, and I tend to find that those things combust.

The essence to me of all good drama is argument.

I think conflict is one of the things that makes for a good story.